


Tournament

by Taylande



Series: A Collection of Tales [1]
Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Angsty half-elf is angsty, Argent Tournament in Wrath of the Lich King, Drunkenness, Gen, I hurt my OC again, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Oops, Past Child Abuse, Past Relationship(s), Sad, Sorry Not Sorry, bloody nose, oh well
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-12
Updated: 2017-06-12
Packaged: 2018-11-13 04:28:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11177043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taylande/pseuds/Taylande





	Tournament

_Some time during the Northrend campaign…._  
   
Aeva sat atop an armored horse, every single plate adorned with the Argent Crusade’s symbol of a blinding twinkle of light. Nothing could be more fitting. She rode in her full armor, golds and royal blues overlapping as her tabard fluttered in that chilly Icecrown breeze. She waited patiently for the squire to announce the next round.  
   
Stealing a glance back, she saw Ivan sitting in the stands with his arm around Royce. And that druid man, Nashathel, he sat only one spot away from her ex-fianceé. That elven bastard ignored him, her eyes cold and calculating from the distance Aeva watched at. The woman nodded occasionally at Nash’s quiet stream of mumbled Darnassian. Aeva only glared under her helmet.  
   
“Announce the fucking match already,” she muttered to herself. Her breath steamed out in front of her. She had been told by her superiors to remain calm if she entered this tournament. Though they said she was one of three to represent Stormwind, she truly represented her squadron.  
   
They may not have been Seventh Legion, as the other two were, but they still remained as formidable as them. Torrolf commanded a good portion of the 331st Battalion. Smaller and lesser-known, full of different races and now with a draenei or two. Torrolf commanded his own personal platoon, various other officers within doing the same. As long as they had reports to give, he’d say.  
   
“Riders! Are you ready?” the young squire called. Black mane of neat long hair, barely even out of his teens.  
   
Both riders, Aeva and some tauren fellow, nodded.  
   
“Lances raised!” Their lances raised from idle to their rights.  
   
“Fair joust…” the young man called. “RIDE!”  
   
Aeva jammed her knees into the horse. It surged forward, power pumping through it like oil in gnomish machines. The tauren, on a special breed of smaller kodo, stampeded closer. And closer. And closer. One more hoof.  
   
The tip of her lance connected with armor. Aeva used her strength to ram it in further, shoving the much larger bull of a man (literally) off his mount. The kodo rushed forward a few feet more, then stopped, wheeling around. Aeva nudged her horse to turn.  
   
Despite not being able to hear over the roaring civilians and military officials and Argents, the tauren looked fine. He had already shoved himself to his hooves. The tauren dusted some light flakes of snow off his armor.  
   
Aeva smirked, nudging her mount into a trot. She made her way to the gates on the side where that runt of a lad stood and waited for the jousting to stop. The lad, in a bit of a trance from the action, came to his senses and looked up at her.  
   
“Squire,” she greeted. Aeva got met with a low bow and some mumbled title. She didn't bother to have him repeat his words. The bow was enough. “How did I do? Ah, hold on. Let me phrase that again. How do you think I did?”  
   
The squire paused. He took a moment to think, then his face lit up like he had a positive result. “I think you did great, Knight Petrovsky! Clear out, since a rider from the Darkspear and Ironforge are about to go.” He ran back to the center of the field.  
   
Aeva dismounted from her horse, leading him to the opposite gate where riders came and went. She passed a dwarf leading their battle ram in. She only mumbled a halfhearted “good luck” in their direction, keeping her gaze on the ground. From what she’d heard, it would be best to avoid the dwarves, due to their competitive nature in tourneys. Especially with orcs and humans.  
   
She led her horse back to the stables, awaiting one of the officials or another fool trying to compliment her or wish her luck if she made it to the final leg of the tourney. Getting onto her knees, she undid the straps that held the saddle on. Underneath it, she had the plate draping to remove. It only took her a moment, one she’d rather use checking her horse.  
   
“I'm sorry for using you in this, Plum. You held up well under the pressure,” she assured her mount. Aeva smiled, knowing her mount would either pay no attention to or exploit in his own horsey way to gain a sweet from her. “No. Not now, Plum.”  
   
Footsteps crunching into the gravel and snow alerted her to someone coming up behind her. Aeva reached down at her waist, hand wrapping around the arming sword the peacekeepers permitted her to carry. She waited a moment before drawing the blade on the person. Aeva’s whole body whipped around as if it were one unmovable whole thing.  
   
“Aeva! Why would you pull your weapon on me, your most favorite person ever?” Royce gave her an injured look, staring up with eyes that screamed ‘kicked puppy’. The woman knew just how to play a guilt card, even if for a simple joke between friends.  
   
Aeva felt a small smile grace her lips as she reached out and gingerly curled one of Royce’s dark locks around her fingers. “Don’t do that to me, little sister. You know how it hurts and gives me the false idea that you're hurt.” She stared at her friend, smile turning softer and giving her a more vulnerable look.  
   
“Your brother is so needy, Aeva…. Poor boy still can't get a grip that I've been trying to leave him. Why can’t he take no for an answer? Why can’t he… you get it.” Royce reached up and pulled Aeva’s hands down from curling her hair. Woman loved Royce’s dark locks. Aeva stopped curling the other woman’s hair, knowing her to be right. Always on every occasion.  
   
Aeva only sighed. She lowered her hand to her waist, sword still hanging in her right. “Torrolf has the most screwed up group of people. First, Nash and Tay. And she gets into my pants, has who knows how many affairs, and I happen to catch her and forfeit a marriage. Then, you and my brother. Plan on a wedding, now that's called off, and here you're spending time with me, complaining about all-too-understandable things on my brother. Then Torrolf’s wife starts fighting with him. And now Tay is breaking Nash’s heart by playing with it.”  
   
Royce nodded once. A small grin spread onto her face. “Is it safe to admit I thought of letting Tay in my own tent at night?” Aeva almost struck Royce with a gauntleted hand, but instead grasped the other woman’s hands tightly in hers. She put on her own pleading face, leaning in close to speak with Royce about how awful an idea bedding Taylande fucking Silverblade could be, how it _was_.  
   
“No! She is amazing in bed, and that's what's bad. It gets you wanting more. Tay will lure you in with that, give you as much as you can handle, then cast you aside like the scraps of a meal. Don't, please,” Aeva begged. “If you want further proof, I will give it to you regardless.”  
   
Tay leaned against the rails surrounding a practicing ring for champions of their factions to hone their skills. It lay empty at the moment, some few riders who finished already sitting and chatting about this or that. All Horde sat with Horde, and vice versa.  
   
She silently thanked Elune for the Argent Crusade allowing dwarven ale onto the tourney grounds. Only the Goddess knew how much they’d allow her to drink before cutting her off and leaving her to find some desperate woman in need of company. Truly, she did know the alcohol limit of the Crusade, she just didn't care to listen to them when they said it. Oh well. As long as she got some kind of sexual gratification.  
   
Her ears picked up the quiet ravings of two people in the background, nearly drowned out from the cheering as the competition went on. If it could be called that. She just wanted to get drunk enough to swoon a woman into her bed that night. It would be cold, anyways, and Nash acted too Goddess-damned clingy after a certain amount of time.  
   
“Tay, have you ever given thought to being a mother at all?” a woman asked. Tay looked back, face sporting a disappointed expression when she saw Aeva and Royce together.  
   
“...I’m too sober for your questions right now, Petrovsky.” Tay grunted once, turning around and taking a large swig out from her skin of dwarven ale.  
   
“As your commanding officer in charge right now, answer the fucking question, Silverblade,” Aeva ordered.  
   
Tay sighed. She took another swig of her skin, taking care to drink as long as she could for that one sip before she answered. “Yes. Are you happy? I thought of having a family. I can't. I’d be a shit mother because I’d be busy taking every other woman aside, buttering them up, and using them as practice for my tongue.”  
   
Aeva blinked once, careful to not let the sharp sting of the words hit her. “One more question, then you can get drunk off your ass. Why do you keep bedding women?”  
   
“No chance of pregnancy, I like hearing them moan my name in the tavern’s stinking rooms.” Tay smirked, a dark look coming into her eyes as she drained that skin and tossed it, pulling out another and taking her time to drain that one. Her eyes partially glazed over. “Yours was the best, dalah’shari. ‘Oh, anar’alah Belore. Taylande, Taylande, please, more!’”  
   
Aeva’s face went red. Aside from Tay’s terrible and slurred Thalassian, the only thing concerning her was how _accurate_ Tay got when it came to their shared time in the bedroom. Aeva felt the urge to run her arming sword through the Light-be-damned elf gloating about how she moaned and moaned.  
   
“Answer it.”  
   
“So I don't experience all that stupid heartbreak. Because they're drunk, and all they want is some attention. And I have no connection to them. A new beloray deylah nah.”  
   
Tay was drunk. She used a greeting to give a farewell, something sober her never did. She slurred and over pronounced the words. Tay had most definitely kept up on her Thalassian, just chose to show it off when she got drunk enough to have a hangover the next morning. Torrolf would kill her, and for that Aeva was glad. Tay strutted off.  
   
“Anu Belore dela'na. She meant to say that. But that's a greeting. Al diel shala is the actual farewell. She just said she casts them aside like scraps. But Royce, doral ana’diel?”  
   
Royce smiled faintly. “You need to teach me Thalassian. I want to know what you're saying when you're constantly mouthing words to yourself.” She reached out and grasped Aeva’s hand, giving it a caring squeeze.  
   
Aeva withdrew her hand, raising them and removing her helm. Her ponytail of blonde hair came loose, hair messy and tangled from time under the helmet. She held it by the nosepiece in her left hand. Sighing, she shook her head and moved to the stands where most other finished contenders sat and chatted. She took a spot as close to the stables and as far from the others as  possible.  
   
“Did you call it off with Ivan? I thought I saw him trying to argue with you.”  
   
“Yes, actually. What did your elf-ears hear, Aeva?”  
   
Aeva frowned. “I'm only half elven.” She shook her head and dismissed the silly question with a wave of her hand. It didn't matter. Royce was only joking with her, even if it did stray onto a sensitive topic for her. She placed her helmet on the seat below her, resting her hands on either side of her.  
   
Royce patted Aeva’s left hand, tentatively withdrawing it in case Ivan came out to badger them. The two sat together in silence. They observed the others as they slowly and steadily trickled out before being called in to announce the advancing few in the tourney.  
   
“You know, my own mother tried to kick me out of the house when I was thirteen,” Aeva suddenly stated. “Lovely woman, my mother.”  
   
Royce gasped, hands flying to her mouth as sympathy washed over her face. “Why? Why would she ever do that?”  
   
“Because I preferred the company of women. She planned to enter me into an arranged marriage for money, after my sister Wanda ran off with a sailing merchantman from Kul Tiras. When I told her, she said I was too young to know I liked them. I hadn't even had the stirrings of womanhood.”  
   
Aeva felt tears stinging in the back of her eyes. She stopped, aggressively wiping them away to still remain as strong as she looked. By the Light, how she hated herself for this. Ivan had saved her but here she sat, chatting up the woman that _he_ loved, right behind his back at the most talked-about event in ages. This went against her morals so very much.  
   
“I love my mother. I love her so much. But she tried to abandon me at a market in Lordaeron City. If Kristofer hadn't found me over at the seamstress’s shop, I would've been an orphan,” Aeva spat through clenched teeth.  
   
“What brought this on?” Royce asked. Aeva shoved her helmet onto her head, turning around and looking to see two other women striding out from some tent on the Argent Staging Grounds.  
   
“Because of her.”  
   
Royce turned around, spotting Tay with a very glossy look in her eyes escorting a draenei off somewhere else. She furrowed her brow. Why would Tay being at the tourney make Aeva remember her problems with her mother? It simply made no sense, but she knew better than to ask and possibly upset Aeva more.  
   
“Silverblade! I have questions for you! Immediately!” Aeva called as Tay made her way across the tournament grounds with the draenei at her side. Tay stopped, quickly mumbling something to the woman and made her way to Aeva and Royce as the draenei moved in the opposite direction as quickly as possible.  
   
Tay swaggered over to the two women, a hungry look in her eyes and a smirk that screamed about having some stupid idea. She paused in front of them, giving them a look. Slamming down a bottle of some strange alcohol, she stared at the two and waited for them to ask their questions they wanted answers to.  
   
“Do you recall me ever talking about my mother?” Aeva asked. Tay’s face went stony. Aeva saw her posture straighten more than usual. Parents, Aeva recalled, could be a sensitive topic for her ex-lover unless one spoke about them carefully.  
   
“No. Why do you keep bringing that woman up? Why do you keep bringing parents and the thought of parenting up? I told you I’d be a shit mother anyways.” Tay practically spat the words out, her fists clenching in anger.  
   
“Because I remember how you never once listened to me after I proposed to you, and how you kept getting more and more distant. I also remember that you tried to avoid the topic of your own mother whenever I asked, and how you also kept only saying your father was an asshole and that you yourself were a bastard born from a fucking rape.”  
   
Tay screeched in anger, lunging herself at Aeva and wrapping a hand around her throat. She raised her left fist and threw punch after punch after punch at Aeva’s face. Blood welled around Aeva’s nose and began to litter itself over Tay’s fists. Tay threw in one last, more powerful punch than the rest, before she felt Royce ripping her from Aeva before she got carried away and injured her further.  
   
“At least you had a mother, you Goddess-damned half bred shit!” Tay screamed as Royce shoved her as far away as she could get before having to return to Aeva. Tay sulked off once she reached one of the arches leading to the Silver Covenant and Sunreaver tents.  
   
Royce ran back to Aeva as she pushed herself from the ground. She caught a glimpse of tears streaking down the other woman’s face, but decided to ask later in case something worse got triggered by it. For now, Royce only examined Aeva’s injuries to make sure it would heal up sooner rather than later.  
   
“This is also part of why you don’t want to bed her. It’s like an inexperienced person using a whip. They whip it, but then it flies back and strikes you on the face. In my case it’s literal,” Aeva replied, laughing weakly to try and seem okay. She twisted her head to the crook of her shoulderpad and wiped off the blood on the blue cloths that prevented too much armor grating on itself.  
   
“Aeva, don’t pretend you’re okay. Can’t you at least heal yourself? You’re a paladin, I thought, not just some knight,” Royce pleaded. Aeva raised her hands and patted the other woman on the shoulders.  
   
“I’ll be fine. That seems a waste of the Light, if anything. I’ll let it heal naturally.” A horn sounded before she could answer immediately. “We need to return inside the stadium. They’re to be announcing the advancing peoples. With luck, we get to go on and fight Arth--the Lich King, after this. I hate remembering him being Menethil….”  
   
Aeva led Royce back to the stadium, Royce making her way through the stands with the rest of the spectators. Aeva stood with her hands clasped behind her back as she waited for the squire, or any of the Argent Crusaders, really, to announce the results of the first part of the tourney. She didn’t hear many of the results until it got to Stormwind’s contenders. A male human rogue had been disqualified. She would continue, though she did not feel safe when it came to the rest of this tournament.  
   
These were just qualifying rounds.


End file.
